Weekend Reading: The Canada Project Edition

The Canada Project, a survey launched by Maclean’s to mark Canada’s 150th birthday, explores what Canadians love about their country, and what they’d like to see improve. There’s some fascinating information coming out of the survey: how we feel about travel and transportation, about our patriotic drinking habits, and why we hate Nickelback.

Another piece that deserves further exploration has to do with income equality and why everyone feels like they’re in the middle class. What the survey revealed was that feeling middle class was less about household income (Prime Minister Trudeau described the typical middle-class Canadian family as one with $90,000 in household income) and more about values such as having children, a good education, secure employment, or living in a safe neighbourhood.

Here’s also a bit of a freelancing update. I’m back with the Toronto Star writing a monthly column on banking and investing. I’ve also joined the PC Financial team and will write a monthly money column for their blog. Watch for those before the end of the month.

Here’s a great interview with Morgan Housel on what you need to know to be a successful investor. I enjoyed this bit:

My entire net worth is now literally a checking account, a house, and those two stocks (the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index and Berkshire Hathaway). I don’t think it needs to be more complicated than that. The more complicated your portfolio is, the more knobs you have to fiddle with, and the more knobs you have to fiddle with the more opportunities you have to make regrettable, emotion-based decisions.

“I will not waste a minute worrying about how they are going to spend the money. And I am glad we gave it to them.”

Finally, the accounting firm that employs Mark Goodfield, aka The Blunt Bean Counter, is conducting a survey on wealth management and would appreciate your input. The survey takes just 3-5 minutes to complete.